


Nothing Bad Ever Happens in Auldale

by StopTalkingAtMe



Category: Thief (Video Game Original Series), Thief (Video Games)
Genre: Deadly Shadows, Hammerites vs Pagans, Kissing, M/M, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 23:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19306432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/pseuds/StopTalkingAtMe
Summary: All over the City new growth was sprouting up. In the parks and commons and gardens. In the empty spaces where Karras’s abomination factories once stood. Green shoots twined up through the rubble. Wildflowers and weeds sprouted in the cracks. Ivy clung to crumbling walls and brickwork. And they all bore the same message as the strange markings that appeared overnight, chalked on brick or carved into stone: the Trickster is not dead, but only waits, biding his time until stars and fate align.And in the meantime, wild pigs rooted in the places where the children played.





	Nothing Bad Ever Happens in Auldale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamkist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamkist/gifts).



**Nothing Bad Ever Happens in Auldale**

 

" _Before death came, the liars were made to feast upon the hands of the thieves, and the thieves were made to ingest the tongues of their liar brothers, and we praised the Master Builder for his judgements._ "

– _The Hammer Book of Tenets_

 

The attack didn’t quite come out of nowhere. Alone of the three of them, Drept felt it gathering like a fist of wild magic clenching in his chest. It was borne on a wave of warm air, and with it the mingled scents of honey and blossom and spice. It felt like the moment before spending, an instant held in suspension, caught between one second and the next.

They barely even had time to scream.

It knocked Drept from his feet, sent him tumbling end over end until he slammed into one of the columns that held up the vaulted ceiling of the cloistered walkway that ran perpendicular to the park. The jarring pain in his spine was forgotten as the magic continued to flow. It felt like a thousand fingers with needle-sharp nails were trying to flay him alive. And his skin _squirmed…_

The back of his hands shone an oily glistening black with what looked like ink. Not ink, he realised, but ants: he was covered with countless tiny ants, each no bigger than a pinprick, and every one was stinging.

It burned. By the Builder, it _burned_. He’d never known pain like it, not in all his life. He had to breathe in panting sobs, snatching at every lungful of air, but he could still feel them, rippling in a prickling tide past his lips and into his mouth, over his tongue and his throat. They were inside him, those countless ants, in his throat and his nose, his eyes, his gullet, his lungs.

Gradually it ebbed; his skin still burned, red and tender as though he’d been flayed raw with stinging nettles, but the invasive feeling of the ants beneath his skin ceased, a minor blessing in the scheme of things.

He knew, even before he struggled to sit his aching body up and saw the crumpled bodies, that he was the only one to survive. The watchmen had been scythed down like ears of wheat, their bodies scattered.

Powerful magic. He’d only ever seen its like once before, a long time ago.

Deep in the park, something shrieked, a gibbering _whoop whoop_ that couldn’t have come from anything human. Something moved through the trees beyond the wrought iron fence, leaping from branch to branch.

_Move, thou gawping moon-calf. Move._

Drept cast around for his hammer, but the street lights had been extinguished and he could not see it. Nor did he trust he had the strength to use it. His bones felt weak and shaky, barely strong enough to hold his weight, let alone wield the solid weight of the hammer.

In the park, the lights that he’d taken for lanterns danced like between the trees, tracing intricate patterns of light in the darkness. He stared at them, searching for meaning in their play, and so fixated did he become on their hypnotic movements that he almost failed to notice the multitude of shadowy figures slipping between the trees. Perhaps twenty or so men and women dressed in coarsely woven linens, ragged furs, and tattered rags, barefoot or booted, their faces painted mossy green and brown.

Pagans.

 _By the Builder,_ he thought. ‘ _Tis an army._

It was unnerving how little sound they made. They communicated in hoots and bird calls, the chirp of insects. A scream he would have taken as an urban fox had he not seen the youth responsible, his hair a mass of curls. He wore a tunic fashioned from torn strips of cloth, and carried a staff of roughly carved wood. Drept felt the clawing unnatural itch of unfamiliar magic in his throat.

They came slipping out through the gates of the park, and he dragged himself back into the shadows of the walkway.

The boy seemed to be their leader, though he couldn’t be any older than fifteen, slender and elegant. He was accompanied by a barefoot woman, her hair bound up with a thorned vine and her skin was inscribed with heathenish symbols that glowed phosphorescent when the moonlight struck them.

They paused at the corpses of the watchmen and the boy set his boot against one of the bodies and kicked it over onto its back. Then he looked up, his face eerily blank, empty of emotion.

"Where bes the hammerhead?" he asked.

The woman turned her gaze unerringly towards Drept. He groped in vain on the ground for a weapon as she approached, her bare feet stepping lightly across the cobblestones. She had a dagger in her hand, the elaborate pommel decorated with fragile bronze leaves that twined through her fingers and seemed to quiver with every air-current.

Drept opened his mouth to spit an insult at her, and in a casual gesture she reached towards him and curled her fingers into a loose fist. At once his throat constricted, tightening so that he could not speak, could hardly breathe, could do nothing but prepare himself as best he could for his death.

Instead, her eyes met his, and he realised he knew her.

 _You,_ he thought, and saw the same recognition reflected in her eyes. Well, if he had to die it seemed appropriate that it should come at her hands.

She held his gaze for a long while, then without turning away, she called to the boy: "Rats thems be feeders on him weepsie bones."

He stared at her, and she returned his gaze, steady and solemn – _See what I have done,_ her eyes said – and then she turned on her heel and rejoined the rest of the band as the boy let out a low mournful whistle at the stars.

Drept exhaled and dropped his head back against the wall, the pulse of his heart beating hard in the hollow of his throat.

At the far end of the cloistered walkway, something moved. There came the faintest scuff of boots on stone and a shape slipped along the wall, moving swiftly and certainly from shadow to shadow. It dropped into a crouch beside him.

"Huh," a low voice said at his ear. "Probably should’ve warned you the Pagans were preparing for war."

The thief.

 

* * *

 

Drept had been hearing the whispers for a while. Particularly from the places of the City which hadn’t yet been entirely given over to metal and brick. The Trickster’s roots spread far and wide. They burrowed down beneath the flagstones and cobbled streets, and deeper still, past earth and rock and layers of shale, and he’d left his mark everywhere you looked: scrawled in the name of a tavern, echoed in children’s skipping rhymes.

Something was waking up.

At the docks, sailors talked of seeing movement beneath the waves, a flash of sunlight shining on silvery scales as something long and sinewy dived beneath the surface. More of the children roaming the mudflats when the tidal river was out were the silent and goggle-eyed kind, distinguishable at a distance by the sickly gleam to their skin.

Drept had no proper garden of his own. It was not that the Order forbade gardening. Quite the contrary: to utilise the art of the Builder in order to exert control over nature could be considered an act of worship in itself. How better to prove the ascendency of man than through capturing sunlight beneath slanting panels of crystal, or by enjoining water to run uphill?

It was a dangerous path to tread, however. Growing produce in any useful quantity required more time than Drept had to spare. To simply take pleasure in pottering about was suspect and would have been looked at askance, if not exactly condemned. So he had no garden, only a paved yard in which he grew herbs in pots, tomatoes in a greenhouse, and tended to an espaliered plum tree that spread across one wall as though it had been crucified.

He kept it tidy, his garden. Hired a boy to weed it when he was too busy with work, because allowing weeds to grow was as much a risk as taking too much pleasure in an outdoor space. He ensured it was neat and well-cared for and utterly soulless.

That summer green shoots pushed between the flagstones stones, sprouting up faster than he could pluck them. The plum tree fruited for the first time, the ground around it littered with over-ripe plums, filling the air with the heady fragrant scent of fermentation. He tried to eat one of those plums only once, and found the flesh too sweet for his tastes. The skin burst at the slightest pressure of his teeth, weeping juice over his chin and knuckles. The taste held an undercurrent of rot, and he was left with uncomfortable dreams, visions of dancing figures cavorting around a bonfire that rose higher than the spire of St Edgar’s. Since then, he’d left the rest of the plums for the wasps.

All over the City new growth was sprouting up. In the parks and commons and gardens. In the empty spaces where Karras’s abomination factories once stood. Green shoots twined up through the rubble. Wildflowers and weeds sprouted in the cracks. Ivy clung to crumbling walls and brickwork. And they all bore the same message as the strange markings that sprang up overnight, chalked on brick or carved into stone: the Trickster is not dead, but only waits, biding his time until stars and fate align.

And in the meantime, wild pigs rooted in the places where the children played.

The municipal park in Auldale was the largest green space in the City except for the sprawling Commons that skirted Olde Town. And even so it shouldn’t have been possible to get lost there; it wasn’t so large that the clamour of the City could not be heard, no matter how deep you’d wandered. Yet Drept had heard rumours of exactly that, and worse besides.

It was supposed to be lit, but the lanterns strung along the path had a reputation for going out or mysteriously restringing themselves so that an innocent soul might find themselves led astray and wandering off the path. It was old, that park – they might have tried to tame it, to trap it within a high fence of wrought iron in an attempt to capture whatever might be hiding within, but some of the trees were ancient, older than the City itself.

The last remaining fragment of the ancient wildwood grew within that high-fenced cage of iron, and the Builder knew what secrets it might hide.

It wasn’t only the Hag who hunted in Auldale.

 

* * *

 

In his workshop, with the iron bolt of the heavy oak door slammed into place, he found all the gaslights had gone out. When he tried to turn them back on, the cold blue flames guttered alarmingly, so he let them be and lit a fat beeswax candle instead. That done, he poured himself a glass of Essian ice wine with a trembling hand, and another glass for his guest. Garrett waited deliberately until Drept had taken his first sip of his drink before knocking his own back in one.

Garrett had shaken his hood back, his gleaming emerald eye glinting in the candle-light. He seemed bolder than the last time Drept had seen him, when he’d clung to the shadows, leery of venturing too far from the window as if he suspected Drept might snatch up his hammer and smash in his skull.

Drept had seen drawings of the thief before, the work of a priest who’d been a novice at the time of the attack on the temple in Downtowne, and had been haunted by nightmares ever since. He exorcised them in charcoal, sketching obsessively in every spare moment: insects the size of men with compound eyes, monkey-like creatures baring incisors the length of Drept’s forefinger.

And in the midst of all the horror, a man. Grim-faced and determined, and with most of his face in shadow, the dark hollow of his empty eye-socket dominating the image.

The priest had talent. Even in smudged charcoal, he’d managed to convey the livid puckered scars of a fresh wound still healing, and the resemblance was uncanny. That rough sketch of a man the priest had only briefly glimpsed was still a far more accurate likeness than any of the Wanted posters Drept had seen posted about the City.

Garrett had the slight build of a man who’d spent his childhood never quite getting enough to eat. A narrow, sharp featured face, sunken cheeks and a deep vertical crease between his brows. Not a face that had seen a lot of laughter. The scars about his eye had long since healed, but there was a crumpled look about that side of his face, suggesting he was less than assiduous about wearing the replacement at all times. Drept did not blame him; it was an evil thing.

"I didn’t think you’d be the type to fraternise," Garrett said.

"Thou meanest the Pagan woman?" Drept asked. "Our paths have crossed before. In truth, I thought her long-dead."

"Old lover?"

"I arrested her, and gave her over to Sheriff Truart’s tender mercies."

There was silence at that: he could feel the thief’s hard gaze. If clenched teeth made a sound, then surely it had to be this. When Garrett replied, his voice was hard and flat. " _Oh_."

Drept shook his head impatiently. That was not a subject on which he wished to linger. "Hast thou learned aught of the Hag?"

If Garrett had heard Drept’s question he didn’t show it, and apparently he wasn’t ready to change the subject yet. "You worked with Karras."

"All didst work with Father Karras. _Thou_ hadst dealings with the heretic, didst thou not?"

"When I had no other choice. And he was only Brother Karras back then. What’s your excuse?"

"I beg thee, thief," Drept pressed, " _didst_ thou go to the Cradle? Didst thou find aught there?"

"More than I wanted to."

Drept sighed and poured himself another glass. Garrett shook his head when Drept raised the bottle questioningly. "Not for me. I have to keep my head clear tonight."

Drept looked at him sharply.

The corners of the Garrett’s lips curled upwards. "Oh, did you think this was a social call? Sorry to disappoint."

"I thought thou hadst news of the Hag."

"Well, that, _and_ I’ve got business in Auldale tonight."

Aye, and had gambling not been a vice of both sinners and fools, Drept would have willingly laid money on exactly where the thief’s business lay. There was a new exhibition opening at Wieldstrom Museum, a collection largely consisting of pieces that would have been denounced by the Order in no uncertain terms, had this not been Auldale and the exhibition sponsored by the City’s wealthiest patrons.

"I thought I’d stop in first. Let you know I met your little friend," Garrett said. There was an angry edge to his voice.

Taken by surprise, Drept stared at him. "Lauryl? Thou… thou _foundest_ her?"

"I’m good at finding things. And I guess you never looked that hard, because guess where she was."

"Shalebridge?" The crushing weight of guilt pressed down on him. There weren’t many things in his life he felt ashamed of, but the Cradle was one of them. He’d tried to go back there, Builder knew he’d tried, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. There were entire streets he avoided in the Old Quarter, because it was possible to catch the merest glimpse of its walls.

Garrett showed him no mercy. "The Cradle never let her go."

He shook his head, unable to comprehend Garrett’s meaning. _By the Builder_ , he thought, stunned. _Lauryl, I’m so sorry._ "And now… she…?"

"She’s free."

He exhaled, closed his eyes. "Then I owe thee a debt, thief."

"Yeah, well. I already know what Hammerite debts are worth. I won’t hold my breath."

Drept narrowed his eyes. _I pay my debts_ , he thought, and had opened his mouth to say so when the thief lifted his head. He seemed to be listening to something that Drept could not hear. At least, not at first, but gradually Drept became aware of it too, a melody at the very edge of his hearing, but gradually growing louder, harder to ignore.

The Hag wasn’t the only creature that hunted in Auldale.

The song seeped like poison into his mind. He’d never heard it before, only the rumours and reports from its victims and their loved ones: some Pagan trickery that compelled people to venture from their homes in search of the revels in the wildwood. Usually they came back. Occasionally they even came back in one piece. But a few poor souls had never returned, vanishing into Auldale Park to never be seen again. And always a woman was heard singing, her voice rich and heavy with desire and the ever-present hint of mocking laughter.

That wasn’t what Drept heard. Instead he heard Lauryl.

Her voice was high and sweet, clear enough that it took him back to his boyhood. There was nothing of lust about the emotions it raised within him, but that didn’t make it any harder to resist.

He listened, his mouth dry with the yearning to fling the door open and follow the song out into the night. It was dizzying, and it took all his gathered willpower to reach out for the holy symbol that stood upon desk and clench his fist about it. The urgent need to follow eased, but didn’t vanish completely, and his resistance seemed to have drawn the creature’s full attention his way. It redoubled its efforts, twining its fingers into his skull, working its way into all his innermost desires with gleeful eagerness. It clamoured at him with Lauryl’s voice, asking him why he had not been the one to save her. Why he’d failed her yet again.

He tightened his grip around symbol, squeezed his eyes shut, and began to murmur one of the precepts under his breath: "Vigilance is our shield, that protects us from our squalid past–"

He heard the bolt drawn back.

_By the Builder, the thief._

Drept’s eyes snapped open, saw Garrett ensnared in the music, about to open the door.

"No, thou must not!" He seized the thief from behind, and Garrett grunted, kicking back at him. Despite his meagre size, he was wiry and surprisingly strong, but he still should have proved no match for Drept, who’d been training with a Hammerite hammer since he was a boy of fourteen. At least, that ought to have been the case, but he fought like a feral thing and the siren outside was still singing.

Garrett twisted, fumbling at his belt. He produced something from a concealed pocket, a globe of greasy metal, and with a flick of his wrist, he threw it into the air and immediately turned his head away.

 _Crack_.

The sudden light seared Drept’s eyes, disorienting him. The aftershock left trails upon his vision. In the confusion, Garrett wrenched free, gasping in triumph.

Blinded, Drept heard the door start to open inwards, and he grabbed at it and jerked it open, slamming the edge into Garrett’s jaw. It threw him off balance, but not for long enough: Garrett drove his elbow into Drept’s ribs, barging him out of the way to get through the doorway. And there he stopped.

Drept, blinking stars from his vision, could not see what was outside, but he could see Garrett’s expression. It was filled with a terrifying joy.

What was it the thief saw? What was it that the Pagan creature whispered to him? Something akin to Drept’s vision of Lauryl? Either way, he started to move out into the street.

_Stop him._

Drept swept his leg in a wide arc, catching Garrett’s ankle with one foot, and kicking at the shin of the same leg with the other. Garrett went down, swearing in fury, and threw a punch that went wide. Drept evaded it and booted the door closed again.

Garrett was trying to claw his way past him, and Drept grabbed his hair, hauled him backwards, and gripped his wrists, pinning him with one knee wedged against his chest. While Garrett bucked and fought, spitting curses up at him, Drept brought the holy symbol closer, and Garrett recoiled instantly, hissing like a spitting cat, his teeth bared in a frantic panic, the whites of his eyes – well, one of his eyes – shining as Drept grabbed his wrist and pressed the holy symbol down into his palm.

Instantly, the thief went still, breathing hard, the gleam of candlelight on his sweat-dampened hair. He’d bitten so hard into his lower lip it was bleeding. His grip clenched convulsively around the cast bronze hammer, his eyes and his mind elsewhere.

Drept could still feel the watching Pagan creature, an unpleasant, oily sensation clawing into all his secret places, picking him apart to see what could be found there. Such as the idle daydreams he’d been nursing since the thief climbed in through his window, a lithe dark shadow on the sill. Garrett might not be handsome by any meaning of the word, but he had a certain fineness to his features, and they had some shared history, the two of them, as any two men or women who grew up without a mother and without a home must do. There but for the Blessings of the Builder…

Garrett’s body was slender, his limbs sparsely muscled. Drept wondered whether the skin beneath those dark clothes was as scarred as his face, whether the thorns that had ripped out his eye had torn at him elsewhere. The sensation tugged at him, stroked at him, caressed its fingers through his skull, down his spine. It whispered.

Garrett heard it too. Drept felt the body beneath him shift, the imperceptible arch of hips straining upwards.

Drept handcuffed him quickly, closing the manacles first around one wrist, then the other, then tightening the chain that linked them. That done, he frisked the thief, pulling out another of the metal globes, which he set aside on his desk.

Behind him he heard Garrett draw a shuddering breath and he turned. "Art thou recovered?" he demanded.

Garrett eyed him warily. "What the hell wa _s_ that?"

"Something old and hungry. The Hag is not the only creature that hunts these streets."

"Maybe the streets where I live," Garrett said, tilting his head back. There was defiance in his narrowed eyes, a jut of his bony jaw. "But this is Auldale. Nothing bad ever happens in Auldale."

Drept leant against the desk, raising his eyebrows. "’Nothing bad’? Why, ’twas a spate of robberies a mere two days since."

" _Was_ there."

"About the time thou paid mine workshop a visit. A coincidence, thinkest thou?"

"You can’t trust anyone these days. Are you going to arrest me, Drept? If not, let me go. I’ve got work to do."

"Tarry a while," Drept said. "Abide here, I beg thee. ‘Tis not safe on the streets tonight."

Garrett smiled. "You know, Drept, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you wanted the pleasure of my company."

Drept felt warmth creeping over his cheeks. He turned away, pouring them each a glass of ice wine. "The museum will keep," he said with a certain amount of triumph.

When he turned back, Garrett was watching him, apparently unconcerned that Drept had guessed his scheme. He lifted his manacled hands to take the glass when Drept offered it, raised it awkwardly to his mouth to take a sip. Drept hesitated, then lowered himself to the floor and leaned back against the desk.

"Why’d your Pagan ladyfriend let you go?" Garrett asked.

"Perhaps she didst believe me slain in the attack."

"You’re forgetting I was there, Drept. I saw her look at you. She knew you were alive but she still let you go and lied to the others. Why?"

"Who knows the workings of the Pagan mind? They are creatures of chaos." His voice was quiet, careless. Garrett raised the ice wine to his mouth, studying him over the rim of his glass. His mismatched eyes glittered, and Drept had the unnerving feeling that, through some gift granted by that diabolical mechanical eye, Garrett was capable of striping away the lies Drept had long-since raised about himself like a shield, and of reducing him to the handful of secret truths he carried in his heart. If any man could do such a thing, surely it was this one.

It kept drawing his attention, that eye. He couldn’t keep from staring at it for long. It had left him uneasy after their first meeting, but it was only now he realised why: it reminded him too strongly of Karras’s creations, the stolen souls encased in shining metal, their echoing voices, hollow with despair, their empty emerald eyes

"Does it bother you?" Garrett asked, when his gaze flitted towards the eye again.

"It is an evil thing," Drept said. "By all rights, it ought to be destroyed."

It was the wrong thing to say. Garrett’s face hardened. "It’s mine," he said, "I earned it."

"A righteous man wouldst sacrifice it for the glory of the Builder."

Garrett snorted. "I’ll give you three guesses what’s wrong with that sentence."

"I believe thou doth protest too much, thief. For all thy venal acts, ‘twas still thou who defeated the Trickster. Karras too fell at thy hand."

"Karras fell at his own hand. So did the Trickster. All I ever did was steal."

Silence fell. Drept hesitated, glancing towards the window. Outside all seemed still, but he misliked that quiet. He trusted it about as much as he trusted the man before him. "Lauryl," he said quietly, "Didst she suffer?"

Garrett was silent for a long moment. Drept considered prompting him, but feared to. He was thinking of Shalebridge, of all the stories he’d heard about the terrible place since its fall, and of his own memories, which might have receded with time but still held power: all those nights when they’d lain awake in the nursery tower, listening to the inmates screaming.

"She forgave you," Garrett said finally, and it was not an answer. He shook his head. "The _Cradle_. I’ve been in some bad places before, but Shalebridge... Even when I was a kid we’d hear stories about it. And not good ones."

"’Twas not always so bad," Drept said. "There were happier times. And ‘twas better than the streets."

"I wouldn’t be so sure about that." Garrett stirred. "I have something for you. Something she would have wanted you to have."

"What is it?"

Garrett’s lips tightened, pressing together as if to conceal a smile. His eyes hooded. "It’s in my pocket. I’m afraid I can’t reach it. Would you mind..."

Drept stared at him, heart pounding. "Can I trust thee?"

Garrett’s mouth quirked at the corners. The green light of his eye dimmed as Garrett focused in on Drept. Drept fancied he could hear it, the whir of the miniscule machinery, fine as the workings of a pocket watch. _Finer._ "Do you _want_ to trust me?"

"By the Builder, _no_. And yet it seems I have little choice."

Garrett laughed. It was a low, quiet sound without much humour to it, and Drept suspected it was as close as the thief ever got to genuine laughter. He felt a pang of pity for the man, along with another of recognition. They were, after all, both men who’d been forced to spend their childhoods scrabbling for scraps of everything of value: money, food, love.

What would it be like, Drept wondered, to take this man into his bed? A thief, and worse, a heretic. Who dared to steal from the Hammerites, and would no doubt have stolen from Drept himself had he anything worth taking? A man totally lacking in any sense of decorum, of a moral code, of right and wrong?

Drept sipped the wine, set it aside, moved towards Garrett on his knees. Garrett settled back as if all was right in the world, stretching out his limbs like a noble at a picnic, but those darkly bitter mocking eyes kept watching. Drept’s mouth went dry as he pressed his hand against the pocket of Garrett’s trousers.

"Not that pocket," Garrett said, his voice low. "The other pocket."

Drept held his gaze, heart beating a little too quickly as he brought his hand slowly across Garrett to the other pocket of his trousers, and felt something within. He had to shift position to reach it, bringing his face closer to Garrett’s, and the thief’s face tilted up towards him. His manacled hands rested on his lap. Drept was painfully aware of their proximity, how he could feel them against his belly through his woollen robes. And when he pushed his hand into the far pocket, his mouth was inches from Garrett’s own, so close he could taste the thief’s breath. His fingers snagged against something and he tugged it out, working it free an inch at a time.

A silver cigarillo case, inscribed with a crest. He frowned. It was not his, nor was it something he would have any use for, and then he felt Garrett’s huff of amusement on his cheek.

"The _hidden_ pocket," Garrett murmured. "Inside my shirt."

Drept couldn’t stop a smile from rising to his lips. He forced it away, replaced it with an unconvincing frown.

"Thou art mocking me." But still he slipped his hand where the thief indicated, found there was indeed a hidden pocket in his shirt, where items of value could be kept close, and where the only barrier between Drept’s hand and Garrett’s skin was a layer of thin linen dampened with sweat, and inside...

It wasn’t much. An ancient leather-bound notebook, the cheap paper within crinkled with water damage. Perplexed, Drept flicked through the pages and found them unreadable, the faded blue ink smudged and faded. "I do not understand," he began, and then he returned to the first page, the frontispiece:

_LAU–S D–R_

Clumsy writing. The writing of a child. He sat back on his haunches, pressed his knuckles to his lips, while Garrett watched him lazily.

"’Tis–" He blinked, shook his head, lifted his gaze to the thief again. " _How_? Is this what I think it is? Thou foundest it in Shalebridge?"

"Kind of. She wanted me to burn it, but I’m tired of ghosts treating me as their errand boy. I figured you might want it." Garrett paused. "Also there isn’t a fence in the City who’d take it off my hands. Believe me, I tried."

"What dost thou want in return?" He leafed through more carefully. Most of it was indeed illegible, but there were passages here and there where words could be made out. He spotted his own name – _Henri_ – and shivered.

"Maybe I gave it to you out of the goodness of my heart."

Drept gave Garrett a withering look, and he grinned back, not at all abashed. "Yeah, okay. I’m here to trade."

"I have no coin..."

"Maybe it’s not coin I want."

"Mine body is not for sale, thief." He said this quietly, looking down, and was rewarded with a spluttered laugh. When Drept glanced back up, Garrett was staring at him with a measuring gaze, re-evaluating him.

"You’re not what I expected."

"No?" Drept raised an eyebrow. "Thou art exactly what I expected." He closed the notebook, laid his hand upon it. "What is thy price?"

Garrett considered. "Well, letting me go would be a good start, and a man in my line of work can always use more holy water, but on balance…" He bit his upper lip, thinking. "...Yeah, on balance I’d like some information."

"In search of more sacred Order artefacts to steal?"

"Well, if you have any tips going handy, then feel free to share, but that isn’t the question I was going to ask."

"No?"

"No." Garrett reached out, the fingers of his manacled hands curling into Drept’s robes and pulling him closer. "Why’d she really let you go?"

"I have already told thee–"

"You know what the Hammerites say about liars, Drept? I’m not the only sinner here." He nodded to the notebook. "It’s a small price to pay."

"For a ruined notebook which thou couldst sell to no one else?"

"I went to a lot of trouble to get the damn thing. You owe me. That Pagan would have killed you just for the pleasure of killing a Hammerite. Why’d she let you go?"

"Because I gave her over to Sheriff Truart, and not to Karras."

Garrett’s eyes narrowed. "That wouldn’t do it. Try again."

Drept exhaled. "Because I let _her_ go–" He broke off. Remembered the Pagan, then little more than a dark-haired girl in ragged clothes. And he began to talk.

He’d never thought to see her again, but a day or so after he’d handed her over he had some business at the police station, and the sound of weeping had drawn him to the open door of the interrogation room. She was crumpled on the floor, that ragged child, her nose and mouth bloody and her face a mass of bruises, and she’d looked up and flinched. Sixteen, according to the charge sheet, which also noted she was shortly due to be handed over to the Mechanists, but she looked younger. She might have been Pagan – there was always the chance she’d simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and in ill-advised company – but she was one of the converts who’d been born in the City, with a sallow cast to her skin and the runtish look of a child who never got quite enough to eat.

He’d let her go.

Knowing it would almost certainly mean excommunication and a slow, painful death if he was caught, he’d overwhelmed a guard from behind and led her out through a back door into the yard. All the way she stared at him with bitterly suspicious eyes, expecting a trick. And afterwards, he’d waited, expecting judgement to come crashing down upon him, but it never came. Either the escape had never been traced back to him, or else they’d snatched so many from the streets in those terrible days that they had never even realised the girl was missing.

"Like I said," Garrett said when he'd finished. "Not what I expected."

And then he tugged Drept closer and kissed him. He tasted of wine and smoke, and his tongue twined forcefully against Drept’s as their lips met. Garrett dropped his head back so Drept was forced to press closer, lifting his hand to Garrett’s cheek and burying his fingers in the dark curls. Not a gentle kiss, by any means, but hard and hungry and enough to bring Drept’s shields crashing down. Drept felt fingers brushing against the wrist of the hand he had pressed against Garrett’s cheek–

Cold steel clamped around his wrists.

He broke off the kiss and pulled away, the chain of the manacles now restraining his own wrists clinking. "What–"

Garrett moved quickly, slipping out from beneath Drept and rolling to his feet. Breathless and grinning, his hair in disarray, he raised his hand, the key of the manacles dangling from his finger.

"Not that this hasn’t been fun," he said, as he unlatched the window, "but I really do have work to do."

" _Thou_ –" Drept lurched to his feet, started towards him.

"Uh-uh." Garrett jerked his hand back, threatening to fling the key out into the street.

Reluctantly, Drept stopped. "When didst thou pick my pocket?"

"You can’t expect a man to give away all his secrets. And you lied to me, Drept. Last time I was here you told me there was nothing worth stealing." Garrett hefted the bottle of Essian ice wine. "You know how much I’d get for this?"

"Keep it," Drept said, hoarsely. "’Tis a gift."

"Where’s the fun in that?" But he didn’t put the bottle down. He glanced out through the window, keeping a cautious eye on Drept. "You think the streets are safe now?" he asked.

"The danger has most likely passed," Drept admitted.

"Good," Garrett said, and he swung up onto the windowsill. He tossed the key onto a shelf, where it was just out of Drept’s reach, but retrievable with a little effort. "If it’s any consolation, Drept, I think I’m probably about to save the City again." And he made to jump out of the window.

"Wait," Drept called urgently. Garrett stopped, looking back warily. Drept swallowed, worked some saliva around his parched mouth. "Will… will I see thee again?"

Garrett studied him for a long moment.

"Take a little piece of advice from a heretic, Drept," he said. "Go back to the Cradle. Face your demons." He nodded towards the flash bomb on the desk. "And keep hold of that. You might find you need it."


End file.
